


What's In A Name

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 00:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6447934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake thinks Jenna's right- the ship did need a name. He'd just have liked a say, or at least a veto...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry.

“Zen,” Blake said, trying to sound authoritative. He had no idea why they had stopped. Was the alien ship no longer under their control?

_Please state speed and course._ the computer said. 

“Cygnus Alpha, standard speed,” he repeated. 

_Completed. Boaty McBoatface is in stationary orbit, one thousand spacials above the planet surface._

Blake tried to process two wildly unlikely elements of that statement at once and ended up speechless. They’d only just set course for Cygnus Alpha. They couldn’t be there already. And what the hell had it called itself?”

Beside him Avon seemed to be choking out a query. 

“He got that from me.” Jenna said. “It was something I was thinking. Sorry.”

_Your thought was accepted._ Zen said. Blake thought it sounded slightly smug. 

“I suggest you unthink it rapidly.” Avon said. “It’s giving Blake heart palpitations.”

“I don’t think I can,” Jenna said. “And I’m not sure that I want to. Why shouldn’t I name her? I am the pilot.” Blake noticed the way her hand brushed the hilt of the gun. He was pretty sure that Avon had seen it too.

“I understood that the owners generally named ships,” Avon said. “Besides, you do know that it isn’t technically a boat?”

“I’m a pilot,” Jenna repeated. “Don’t tell me my job, Kerr Avon. She’s called Boaty McBoatface and that’s the end of the matter. Now are we going to take a look at this planet now we’re here or not?”

* * * * * * *

“They are hardly hand picked crew,” Avon said. “I still think we’d be better off without them.”

“We?” Blake asked. He was somewhat surprised that the man hadn’t just demanded to be put down somewhere. It had been days now and Avon was still at his shoulder most of the time.

“I’m not letting you keep this ship for yourself, “ Avon said. “Boaty McBoatface doesn’t need a crew of more than three. These others are nothing but potential trouble.”

Blake swung away from his meal to look at Avon. “You said that with a straight face,” he accused. “How did you do that?”

“It’s just a name,” Avon said. “The ship goes just as fast regardless of its sobriquet.” He raised an eyebrow at Blake. “I suppose you would have preferred something grandiose. Liberty, maybe, or Revolution.”

“Don’t you think it would have been more appropriate? I didn’t intend to be a laughing stock.”

Avon snorted at that. “Better to rise above a name than fail to live up to one.”

“I have every intention of living up to whatever this ship could have been called. With her we can make a difference. It isn’t going to help to have people laugh at us though.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Avon’s smile was sudden. “Can you imagine the Federation warning its outlying garrisons about the threat that Boaty McBoatface poses? The less seriously your enemies take you, the more vulnerable they make themselves.”

“I want my potential allies to take me seriously,” Blake grumbled. 

“Then you’ll have to do something to earn it. Just calling your ship “Blake’s Incredible Heroics” won’t impress anyone but the terminally stupid.”

Blake narrowed his eyes at Avon. “What would you have called her, then?”

Avon’s smile was thin lipped this time. “Eris,” he said.

“And what does that mean?” Blake demanded.

Avon didn’t reply. Instead he put down his empty plate and left the galley. 

 

* * * * * * *

“Your escorts are destroyed. Surrender your cargo and we will let you go.”

The Federation officer in the viewscreen was not yet entirely convinced. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Roj Blake,” Blake said, and with a certain amount of reluctance. “Of Boaty McBoatface.” 

The officer looked briefly startled out of his consideration of his own fate. “What was that last bit?”

Blake was about to repeat it with even more reluctance when Avon spoke, from behind his shoulder again.”If you didn’t catch our name you ought to be listening a great deal more carefully. After all the lives of yourself and your crew depend on it. May we have your decision now? Boaty McBoatface has other things to do after we’ve dealt with you.” 

The man glanced to his side, clearly to the people off screen, then back to Blake. “We surrender,” He hesitated, “To, um, Boatyface?”

He looked past Blake to Avon and what he saw apparently made him visibly quail. “Sorry. To Boaty McBoatface.” 

“Thank you,” Blake said. If they were going to have that name then people could at least use it properly. On that at least he and Avon seemed to be agreed. 

 

* * * * * * *

 

The ship had not just accepted Tarrant as Jenna’s replacement, she had changed a little around them in response to the brash young man. Avon wasn’t sure that Tarrant was even aware of it. For Avon, who had wanted her from the start but who would never be her pilot, it was more than a little aggravating to watch her come to life again under someone else’s hands. 

It was barely a week in when Tarrant first proposed that they change her name. “Boaty McBoatface will always be considered Blake’s ship,” he announced. “If he comes back then sure, but otherwise- she could have something a bit more impressive.”

“No,” Avon said. “Boaty McBoatface is this ship’s name and will remain so. If you don’t like it, go and find another alien supership to fly.” 

Tarrant had shrugged and dropped the matter, but he raised it again every so often. Avon was rather glad that no-one apart from him still on board had been there when the ship had received its name the first time. He was fairly sure that Boaty McBoatface’s new pilot could just subvert Zen and rename her if he was determined enough, but he wasn’t going to tell the boy that. He suspected they’d end up flying round in a ship called “Pirate King” if Tarrant had his way. 

Avon had long since come to terms with the ship’s name. He would never have chosen it himself but at first there had always been ways to turn it to their advantage. Now after all this time it was just her name to him, as familiar as his own and Blake’s. Blake had risen above it, as Avon had told him he could, and the Federation had long since stopped laughing. Once he’d heard Servalan hissing “I want Boaty McBoatface” a couple of times it was fairly obvious that for her the name was nothing and the ship was everything. 

He wondered, as he’d done occasionally over the years, where the name had come from. Jenna had claimed complete ignorance- something she’d made up or something she’d overheard, she didn’t know which. Avon thought it must have been more than that to get Zen’s attention as it had. Still, she was gone now and he would probably never know. 

With Blake gone too, finally Boaty McBoatface was his. Avon had expected that he would have been happier. He had expected that he would have felt something positive. Liberated, maybe. Instead he just felt angry most of the time. He ran a hand along Boaty McBoatface’s walls, felt her quiver as the engines took them to somewhere else he had little interest in going. His ship. Maybe he should have held out for Eris after all.


End file.
